Things is Okay

I just got a package from Michelle, with the most awesome Birthday gifts: Pictures of everyone with messages on the back – Thanks so much to: Dave, Arya, James, Amy, Tara, Andy, Lindsay, Parker, Raz, Jesse, Lizzy, Anna, Sarah, Brandi, and of course Michelle (and thanks for the XKCD & card too). Also, a shot out to Collette, with the most randomly awesome package with magazines, playing cards (how did you know?!), and other goodies.

So, I’m doing pretty well, I just spent last night in Jinja winning 50,000 /= (which is about $30) at the Casino, before going out dancing. We may be volunteers working against disease, ignorance, and poverty during the week, but we know how to party on the weekends. And some of that money will probably go to improving my resource center – I’m pretty sure no money will be coming from the college to fix it, and grant writing seems pretty daunting especially considering that the amounts are so small ($5 here, $20 there).

Well, I think that I’ve just recently cleared a hump that I knew I was stuck on. It seemed like every day I was getting mad at kids calling me “Mzungu” every where I went and taxi drivers trying to overcharge me (by like 25 cents, but it’s the principle), and I was spending an increasing amount of my time at site just reading and being by myself. Angry + Lonely – Good Friends & Family_closeby = Sad Jones. Anyway, I think what really helped was reading a book called Blue Like Jazz. It’s actually a book about one man’s search to be Christian in the modern world, so there were some parts about loving Jesus and whatnot that didn’t exactly speak to me. However, at the end there were some chapters where he talked about Living in Community, which really struck a chord with me. I’m really used to living with people (and if I can brag a bit, really awesome people), and here, by definition, I must live alone. The only problem with that is that it gets lonely. Anyway, there were also another few chapters at the end of Blue where the author talked a lot about just “loving” other people, randomly, and unconditionally. This idea echoed what I read about Paul Farmer in Mountains Beyond Mountains (thanks Michelle), and I think it’s really an essential part of living a happy life. It’s also something I’m not very good at. But, over the last week, by just looking at the kids yelling “Mzungu” and dancing and going crazy, and laughing at them instead of scowling, I’ve felt a lot better. Looking around with a smile and approval of those around you has helped me very much to be happier. It’s true, things are annoying here. But it is infinitely easier to deal with them if you take them with acceptance and a smile than if you battle them. Anyway, that seems to be going well and I hope I can keep it up.

As far as work is concerned, things are going well. I’m almost finished visiting all 65 of my schools – there are only two left to go! Some of the ones I’ve already gone to were really “deep deep” in the bush. One day I visited three of the more remote schools and logged just under 100 Km on my bike mileage meter – which to brag a bit, is not too bad, especially on potholed, muddy, dusty, swampy, windy and sometimes maze-like “roads” and footpaths. It’s also amazing how much work it is to do things that seem so simple. I only visited 3 schools in one day. Three pages of basic information collected from a long hard day of riding. In the states, with a car, on good roads I could probably visit 12 schools in a day and be done with this tour in a week, rather than taking about 2 months just to visit each one for half an hour. Anyway, now that I have most of the data I’m starting to analyze it to figure out which schools are doing the best, and especially which schools are doing the best with the fewest resources. This will be a bit of a challenge as I’ll be working pretty much exclusively in Excel (oh, what I wouldn’t give for a nice copy of Matlab – never thought I’d miss that). Hopefully, I’ll have some type of report before the new term in Feb. 2008

Here’s a quick update of what’s coming up in my life:
* Dad and Jason coming to visit (Nov. 27th – Dec. 13th) WOOOT!
* Training of Facilitators (of which I’ll be one) for the Thematic Curriculum for P2 (2nd grade) teachers. This is a new project that Uganda is phasing in where the material to be taught isn’t strictly placed in subjects as much as themes and is supposed to integrate things better. It also focuses on giving pupils (they almost never call them “students” here) a more fluent base in their local language (in my area, that’s Luganda). I think in theory it sounds like a good program, but as I’ve seen in some of the P1 classes while I’ve been here, actually doing it is a bit rocky.
* Life Skills & HIV/AIDS training (almost right up to X-mas) for a week in Kampala. I’m still not exactly sure what this “life skills” thing is – something like teaching kids to stand up for themselves so they can make good decisions and not get AIDS (most kids [and women] here are very deferent to anyone older and I bet this gets abused all too often).
* A nice break – no Christmas plans yet. It’ll be weird to be away from home.
* Then actually doing the training for the P2 teachers in my catchment area in January.

Alright, that’s it for me – Peace out!

Loves,
Ryan